Gringo Cerveza Jalapeño Ale

Brewed: 03/25/2012Bottled: 04/08/2012For quite some time, I thought it might be fun to do a jalapeno beer. My buddy "CrazyBrody" has a recipe 44 Fire in the hole that inspired me to actually make my own recipe. Yes, I stole quite a bit of it from him.

I've used the name "Gringo Cerveza" before, and at one point even had plans to upgrade it to a partial mash recipe. The original was more of a weak APA, and although I enjoyed it at the time, I have plenty of great pale ale recipes now. This one is a "lawn-mower" type cream ale with a low-alcohol content (low for me, anyway). The jalapenos come through nicely in a lightish-bodied beer I think.

My first attempt was a 5-gallon batch split in two. Half had jalapenos added after primary fermentation. The other half had no jalapenos.

This was my first all-grain BIAB brew day. For more on BIAB, follow this link.

On my second batch I decided to try using popcorn instead of flaked corn. I got the idea from Sun King Brewery's PopCorn Pilsner which I heard about on the Brewing Network. I talked about the impression that interview had on me on my blog post Popcorn Beer #HomeBrew.

Batch sparge with 2 steps
(1.68gal, 3.50gal) of 168.0 F water
Recipe NotesFerment in two Mr. Beer Kegs 4 days. Cut up
Jalapenos, soak in vodka, put in hop sack(s), and then add to one
fermenter.Leave Jalapenos in the fermentor for 4 days and then
remove.Carb with 4.5oz sugar boiled for 5 minutes in 2 cups water (2.25 for
each keg).Remember to keep batches separate.Splitting a batch (this
time) and only adding Jalapenos to half.

03/08/2012 esheppyDrinking the last of the non-jalapeno beer. I actually think it is pretty good still. There are 3 jalapeno beers left.03/28/2012 Brew Day (Sunday) esheppyBrewed up Sunday. Used a sparge grain bag in the mash just-in-case, popcorn was no problem in the sparge. Blogged about brew day on the Homebrew Academy. Fermentation started cold. By day 3, I just let it go to 68ish.03/29/2012 esheppyTried some of the previous batch while chopping up the jalapeños for this one. Still a great pepper beer. Then, soaked the new peppers in vodka and star san, then put them in a nylon bag and added them into the fermentor. Took a sample. Tasted real good. Not sure I detect a difference between popcorn and the flaked corn from my previous batch. There is certainly a corn flavor in there though. Gravity is at about 1.006. I don't expect it will get a lot lower.03/29/2012 esheppyActually 1.007 adjusted for temperature. That puts my ABV at 5.8 which is more than 1% higher than I had planned for. Not really a session beer anymore. Oh well. Also noticed that my bittering addition was supposed to be at 50 minutes and I am pretty sure I added it at 60. 04/01/2012 esheppyHave forgotten to check this the past couple days. Today I opened the cooler that the fermentor is in and got a huge whiff of the jalapenos. This worried me a bit, but when I tried a sample in a shot glass, it tasted like the peppers still needed more time on the beer.04/03/2012 esheppyTried last night and again tonight. Decided to take peppers out tonight. Think it is not as hot as last batch, but has a nice pepper aroma and flavor. Should bottle up this weekend.04/08/2012 Bottled esheppyBottled up the jalapeño beers and then the non-jalapeño beers. Both got 2.25oz of sugar boiled in a bit less than 2 cups, cooled and added to a keg. I used the beer gun to bottle. I got 25 12oz jalapeño bottles. For the non-jalapeño beer I got 3 12oz, 5 bombers, and 4 liter bottles. NOTE: I did not clean out the keg after bottling the jalapeño beer. I may have a hint of pepper flavor in the first few non-jalapeño beers. Samples tasted great.04/09/2012 esheppyI keep forgetting to mention that I used Notingham Dry Ale Yeast instead of US05 because my LHBS was out of US05. Notingham REALLY flocculates strong. Based on the flavor of this beer, I might have to start using this yeast more. It does seem to attenuate more than I used to too.04/26/2012 esheppyHad my 2nd jalapeno tonight with supper. Yummy. Very carbonated. Lots of thick creamy long lasting head.09/28/2012 esheppyStill drinking these. They still taste fabulous.